The Alaska Senate’s leadership has reversed itself and decided to not give a job to McHugh Pierre, the former deputy commissioner fired by then-Gov. Sean Parnell in the aftermath of a scathing Pentagon report on leadership, reprisals and sexual misconduct in the Alaska National Guard.
Sen. Kevin Meyer, R-Anchorage, president of the Republican-led Senate majority, said Tuesday he didn’t want questions about Pierre’s hiring as a spokesman to interfere with the majority’s ability to communicate with the public as the Legislature confronts a huge budget deficit.
“The issues we have coming before us, in my opinion, are so critical that we don’t want any distractions,” Meyer said in a phone interview Tuesday. “Keeping McHugh there would have just kept the issue out there.”
Meyer said last week that he planned to give Pierre a contract for the length of the legislative session, capped at $35,000, to help the Senate majority communicate its priorities. But that announcement generated an uproar among some current and former guard members who considered Pierre to have been one of the problems in his role as the top civilian official in the Department of Military and Veteran Affairs.
The proposed hiring of Pierre by Meyer was never finalized. Meyer said Tuesday that the position would go unfillled for the duration of the 90-day session. “I do see a real need for such a person, especially this year, but we are making budget reductions,” Meyer said. “So this will be a person we’ll just do without.”
